Thursday 25 December 2014

Christmas is Coming .....



Our local supermarket recently underwent a huge overhaul and has just reopened in time to attract Christmas shoppers and, with good reductions and great promotion, they have done that in spades! Last Saturday,  the January sales-type fever and volume of customers had subsided to some extent but it was still pretty busy. As a flower shop had just opened inside, each lady shopper was given a red rose – nice touch! And there were loads of balloons for children to pick up but were mainly lying abandoned. I remembered a young neighbor, Marina, was quite ill with a horrible, lingering ‘flu, had been off school for days, was missing her mates and feeling pretty down. I scooped some balloons up and, at the village butcher’s grabbed a handful of the sweeties he kindly keeps in a jar for customers. 

 Thus armed, on the way home, we stopped off to see Marina, her sister, Maria, and little neighbours, Achilleas and Olympia. Maria’s pinched, wan little face beamed when she saw the balloons – every child loves them -  but when I told them all that I had met Father Christmas who had expressed concern about a young neighbor of ours who was sick, their imaginations were ignited. Of course both the balloons and sweets served as proof I’d met him and that these were ‘interim’ gifts so that they would be good children and get well for his visit to them very soon. So, good deed of the day done- with great assistance from the supermarket and the butcher!

Christmas is coming and a friend suggested we attend a carol service run by the Anglican Church in Greece. Now I have to ‘fess up and state from the outset that in the main the Church Established does little to  nourish my spiritual needs, but when I’m back in Scotland I do try to take in a Protestant service for the good of my soul. I like how our ministers act as spiritual guides, showing the relevance of the scriptures to daily issues we face, as teachers, leading us on the moral path in the complex culture of today.  As we took our seats, I saw before me religious symbols of the ecumenical, all-embracing nature of our meeting: the cross, the menorah - the seven-branched Jewish candle-holder, and the Greek Orthodox equivalent of the bronze sand-tray to hold the votive candles.
                                          
 

Now for some Protestants, the Calvinistic aversion to the cross – even an empty one – still holds; they see it smacking of ‘papal remnants’ …..  and a little idolatry. Certainly, as I sat contemplating it, it struck me as a rather macabre, mawkish object; in fact I felt such a sense of distancing from my surrounds I realized the honest response would be to leave.  But then something happened to change my mood: the organist struck up the first words of the Lutheran carol Away in a Manger. Immediately I was transported to memories of being a little girl whose role in the primary school concert was to sing this carol solo. Flooding back came that age of innocence, to my absolute, comforting belief in the Christmas story, reflected in the words of the hymn: 

Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask thee to stay
Close by me for ever and love me, I pray.
Bless all thy dear children in thy tender care
 And fit us for heaven to live with thee there.

Those memories brought the sense of engagement that had been missing and I was glad I stayed, especially to catch up with old friends and share some mulled wine and mince pies with them - isn’t that what it is all about? Remembering the joy on Marina’s face on receiving the balloon and sweets from Santa, I realise that whatever our logical response to it, the Christmas story can be emotionally therapeutic, a source of warmth in the bleak mid-winter.

 As the end of term for our art classes approached, our teacher, Evangelia, invited us, her students, for coffee. Her house is really like a gallery, full of the really fascinating pieces she has created.  Now you can imagine that if the cross can evoke a negative response in me, then icons are really not my thing, but Evangelia’s oil-on-wood of Jesus of Nazareth in the 1977 Zeffirelli film had me enthusing. I have been a fan of Robert Powell since watching him in the television series Doomwatch in 1971. He has a wonderful voice and, as you can see here, his eyes aren’t half bad either! Evangelia kindly allowed me to copy her work here - I am sure it will impress you as it did me.
                                                 
   
  
We’ve just come back from a wee trip to the region of Naoussa, one of Greece’s grape-growing areas. So it was fitting to see that they sometimes decorate their Christmas trees with ………. wine bottles!
                                               
 

     
 And on that note – with a hint of cranberry and cinnamon:
Cheers!  Merry Christmas one and all!!

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